


Oranges

by TrishaCollins



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Children do not know what they should not be able to do. What begins as a trade of oranges serves to change the fates entirely.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Oranges

It started, of all things, with an orange. 

Nobody had told either child that they should not be able to see each other so vividly, to interact, and to play across the galaxy. Ben kept Rey happy while her parents worked, Rey listening without judgement as he described the frustrations of being a prince and the son of someone so important. She was only two, she barely understood, but she listened. 

Not many people listened to Ben without telling him what to think.

But it started, truly, with the orange. Ben had one, Rey wanted it – never having heard of it before, never having seen or smelled it – and so, without ceremony. 

He gave her the orange. 

And the orange was gone, cradled in her hands as she buried her nose in the scent. 

It broke the safe bubble of two families, both of who had assumed the other child was only an imaginary friend, not someone that truly existed.  
Rey’s parents noticed first, Andeel spotting the peels of the orange, and then a blanket far too fine for scavengers, and then juice pouches and water bulbs that had no business being in the tiny hovel he was hiding his family in.

He left the blanket, he hid the trash of such a faraway place, and he worried. Rey’s only answer, lisped through gaps in her teeth, was that Ben had given them to her. 

But there was no Ben, there was no anyone this far out into the desert. That was why they were there. He did not tell Keera of his concerns, he kept them to himself. 

But a part of him was preparing for leave taking already. If someone had found them already, they would need to move on. To find some other isolated place. He thought of their ship – hidden, tucked away. He had not been able to make himself trade it for credits. It would have given them away, they would have started with too much.

Keera noticed, but kept quiet. It reminded her of something distant, before she had met Andeel in the streets of Coruscant, trying to dodge patrols. They had been drawn together, somehow. A dimmer memory of a darkness that had made her run until she found a corner and ignored the screaming of the dying. She laughed with her daughter and showed her how to peel the oranges, and tried to forget. It was easier to forget the cries and the red light that filled her dreams. 

Ben, if nothing else, had a lot of things. His siblings had a lot of things. Things that wouldn’t be missed. Snacks that droids would replace. 

Chewie noticed first, of course, because he had some experience with children and secrets. But he found nothing of concern hidden in Ben’s quarters, where the boy spent most of his time. There was no cache of food being laid in preparation to run away, there was no hoard that smelled of rot as the youngling learned his limits.

Ben seemed happier, more relaxed, and that settled Chewbacca’s mind better than anything else could. His friend’s eldest had always been a troubled child, nervous and shying back from the light his younger siblings shone with.

This seemed – to the ancient Wookie – something that a normal youngling might do. That was good. So he left it alone, and did not mention it to Han or Leia, or even to Luke. 

The force had always been chaotic around Ben. Since birth, or even when Leia was pregnant with him. A darkness had clung to the boy. Luke had never been able to explain it, able to understand why his eldest nephew put off the dark in such waves. 

But he did. He noticed, of course, odd surges in the force, ripples cast outward, but it was never a thing that concerned him more than Ben already did. He preferred to focus on the younger three, his bright eyed niece with her golden hair, his baby nephew named for his father, and the sensitive soul that had embodied itself in Jason. 

It was easier than worrying himself over Ben. 

Han noticed that Ben was Up To Something, purely because he recognized his own expressions. Ben was up to something because he was a Solo, and he was old enough for secrets now. It didn’t worry him that much, a few purloined items clearly being entered into the black market snack trade was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Ben was smart enough to palm things and get them out of the house without his mother catching him, and that only made it more impressive in Han’s mind. 

If Leia knew…well she did. But the vision of her son’s death blinded her to everything else. It filled her chest, it made her ache. So if he was happy, she allowed for it to exist. If he laughed more because of a few stolen snacks, then she made sure to add more things to the list when the droids shopped. 

After all, feeding an imaginary friend was nothing to be worried for. 

For Rey, Ben was magic. A magic that hummed and warmed her, fingers against her cheek wet with the pool he was drawing her into. He was safe. He made sure when she was hungry, when her parents went away, that she wasn’t. He fed her, he kept her company, and he played with her. He taught her, too, letters and numbers that ran together in her mind. 

Without Ben, all she would have had were the blue men. The ones that spoke to her in dim dreams that faded by morning.

She had spoken Ben’s name before she truly spoke. Shouted it into the force until he heard her, and came to answer her. 

So it started with an orange, and it continued innocently enough until Rey sent the circuit.


End file.
